Giant Monster KoopZilla
Another one that has to be honored as the best of the best. It's very hard to find an episode that truly has a little of everything, to make it a stand out and truly be a superb episode, but this does it quite well. The Super Mario cartoon, while a good idea overall, lacked in originality. Almost all of the episodes were just a spoof of something. The later shows of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World were better in that they stayed more true to stories dealing with the situations we would find in the games, while this just seemed more like the Super Mario characters spoofing some well known TV show or Movie. In a way it's good that this was the case as we otherwise wouldn't have gotten an episode like this. For those that don't get what this is spoofing, this is a clear Godzilla spoof, with King Koopa in the role of the big G. Besides the fact that King Koopa was really big and destroying the city, this had really very little to do with a Godzilla story. Godzilla never ate something to grow and definitely didn't speak or talk about how much fun rampaging is. Of course for this pages use, all of that matters little as this is a great episode in many ways. We have great corny lines being flung back and forth by both sides. A great growth situation and scene with King Koopa becoming Koopzilla. And a spoof of King Kong vs Godzilla when Mario grows as well. High destruction and the fact that King Koopa seemed to be enjoying this a little to much, all make for some great story elements and a lot of fun as far as a monster on the loose situation go. What really makes this work is that King Koopa makes for the perfect giant monster on the loose. He is not at all afraid of the power he is about to get. He doesn't care if he destroys all in his path, in fact he seems to have a lot of fun doing just that. I was surprised they didn't give him fire breath as well if he truly wanted to be Godzilla. Not that he wasn't as destructive as Godzilla was in the movies. Every building he came to he seemed to either rip, push down or throw as if it were a minor inconvenience in his way. Another thing that actually makes this enjoyable is how silly it is. Sometimes the silly factor can really ruin a cartoon but this time it just made it more enjoyable. King Koopa had so many insults that were just silly at best that it sorta added to his character. Everything he said seemed to have this same letter rhyming thing going on "Teensy Tempora Tasters" "Little Linguini Lovers" "Pint -Sized Pests" to name a few of the insults that Koopzilla kept using against Mario and friends. They had really every element here. At one point even the army shows up to try and stop him and Koopa just blows some air over a bunch of tanks sending them crashing into the distance. Then we had what became a Godzilla vs some other monster battle type of situation when Mario himself becomes mega sized and takes on Koopa in the city. Mario doesn't beat him as well as you would think. Usually the good guy beats the bad giant pretty badly but it was pretty even until Luigi shrinks King Koopa with the needle of antidote. I like the fact that King Koopa actually was first seen already as Koopzilla. We learn later in a replay on a video in the lab that shows how Koopa became mega sized which was a great moment as well for any macro fan. It's very rare that we will have a situation like this start with the existing monster to be already be the monster, but it works great in this episode as it causes the heroes to quickly head to the place where the would be monster would have been created. Why King Koopa never follows them or destroys the lab before they get there is another story in itself. Of course there is no such thing as a perfect episode. This comes pretty close though for what it was. Great growth moments, great city situations, great macro elements and silly humor here and there. Even the animation isn't to bad. The only problem were a few continuity errors that I guess they just didn't care about or didn't think on. The biggest mistake was the fact that King Koopa only grew through the building moments before they arrived yet the building was in perfect shape when they get there. I can understand that it was rebuilt as it's supposed to be a Godzilla spoof where the city is always fine the next time the monster returns as if he never destroyed anything but if they are going to patch the building up after Mario out grew it, the same should have worked for after King Koopa did the same. Also the fact that the doctor would have a shrinking food as well at the end makes no sense, rather then to just be a funny sight gag to end the episode. The whole purpose of Super Sushi was to make someone stronger in size and power to take on the bad guys. Why would he invent something to make people weaker and shorter unless it was to be used on bad guys or something. I don't know. I just didn't get the whole thing. Why did he need an antidote to Super Sushi if he had shrinking food as well? Aren't both the same effect in a sense? Oh well you can go crazy trying to figure out logic in some situations. The bottom line is this episode is a lot of fun and a top choice for macro episodes. I think this is a fan favorite and for good reason. It really has something for everyone and a lot for a short episode as well. While it's debatable as to how close a Godzilla spoof this is , more then just some giant King Koopa destroying things, it works for what it was. Maybe one day we will learn why every insult of Koopa's has to have every word beginning with the same letter in a sentence. Maybe he was trying to show that he's not just some evil mindless monster, but knows poetry too? We may never find that out. But I suppose most who watch this, won't really be watching for that anyway. This is one to watch often and enjoy. As it's a rare find but a great classic that will be hard to outmatch any time soon. http://www.temdant.com/Koopa/koopzilla.html Category:KoopZilla